Thinking with objects : the transformation of mechanics in the seventeeth century

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 12
1. Beyond Inertia: From Laws to Objects......Page 16
2. Motion and Mechanics......Page 21
3. The Role of Mathematics......Page 24
4. Experience and Experiment......Page 25
5. Practitioners, Sites, and Forms of Communication......Page 27
6. Structure and Organization of the Present Work......Page 30
1.1 Between Classical Theory and Engineering Practice......Page 33
1.2 Machines, Equilibrium, and Motion......Page 36
1.3 The Balance of dal Monte and the Problem of Rigor......Page 41
1.4 Pulleys and the Contingency of Matter......Page 47
1.5 Rival Traditions on the Inclined Plane......Page 50
2.1 Some Features of Archimedes’ Floating Bodies......Page 55
2.2 Reading Floating Bodies......Page 57
2.3 Benedetti against the Philosophers......Page 60
2.4 Galileo’s Early Speculations......Page 65
2.5 Mazzoni, Stevin, and Galileo......Page 76
3.1 The Broadening of the Mechanical Tradition......Page 81
3.2 Galileo at Padua and the Science of Motion......Page 83
3.3 From Buoyancy to the Science of Waters......Page 95
3.4 Motion between Heaven and Earth......Page 101
3.5 The Science of the Resistance of Materials......Page 106
3.6 The Science of Motion......Page 111
4.1 Different Readings of Galileo......Page 120
4.2 Mersenne’s Harmonie and the Dialogo......Page 123
4.3 Rethinking Galileo’s Axiomatic Structure......Page 132
4.4 Continuity and the Law of Fall......Page 135
4.5 Trials with Projectiles, Pierced Cisterns, and Beams......Page 141
4.6 The Experiments and Tables of Riccioli......Page 146
5.1 The Rise of the Mechanical Philosophy......Page 150
5.2 Mechanics and the Mechanical Philosophy......Page 153
5.3 Beeckman, Galileo, and Descartes......Page 155
5.4 Motion and Its Laws......Page 160
5.5 From the Balance to Impact: Beeckman, Marci, and Descartes......Page 164
5.6 The Workings of the Cartesian Universe......Page 171
Intermezzo. Generational and Institutional Changes......Page 176
6.1 A Characterization of a Research Tradition......Page 181
6.2 Studies around the Time of the Cimento Academy......Page 183
6.3 Pressure and Equilibrium in Pascal and Boyle......Page 188
6.4 Studying the Motion of Waters North of the Alps......Page 191
6.5 Guglielmini and the Bologna Scene......Page 196
6.6 Experiments Combining Pressure and Speed......Page 202
7.1 The Tools of Investigation......Page 205
7.2 The Analyses of Orbital Motion by Fabri and Borelli......Page 206
7.3 Falling Bodies on a Moving Earth......Page 212
7.4 Projectiles and Air Resistance......Page 217
7.5 Huygens’s Pendulum......Page 220
7.6 English Approaches to Orbital Motion......Page 233
8.1 The Emergence of Elasticity......Page 239
8.2 Boyle and Elasticity......Page 240
8.3 The Transformation of the Impact Rules......Page 242
8.4 Springs between Technology and Cosmology......Page 255
8.5 Bending and Breaking Beams......Page 262
9.1 Teamwork and Anti-Cartesianism......Page 270
9.2 Halley, Wren, Hooke, and Newton......Page 272
9.3 The Principia’s Structure and Conceptual Framework......Page 276
9.4 The Role of Experiments......Page 282
9.5 The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy......Page 292
9.6 A New World-System: Newton and Flamsteed......Page 298
10.1 Mechanics at the Turn of the Century......Page 303
10.2 The New Analysis......Page 305
10.3 Conservation......Page 310
10.4 Early Responses to Newton’s Principia......Page 313
10.5 The New Analysis and Newton’s Principia......Page 317
Conclusion. Mapping the Transformations of Mechanics......Page 323
Notes......Page 332
References......Page 370
B......Page 394
C......Page 395
D......Page 396
E......Page 397
G......Page 398
I......Page 399
M......Page 400
O......Page 401
R......Page 402
T......Page 403
Z......Page 404